


A Catastrophe With No Cats

by acindra



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 17:56:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3218225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acindra/pseuds/acindra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lindsay wants a cat, Joel wants Ray, and Michael just wants some goddamn peace and quiet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Catastrophe With No Cats

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for startingwithayang in the RHSS14.

Gavin and Meg jumped back, startled, as the Jones’ door slammed open.

“What’s up bitches?” Lindsay crowed, ushering them both inside quickly, surreptitiously peering behind them before quickly shutting the door again.

“Are you alright Lindsay?” Gavin asked, tripping over his feet into Meg slightly.

As she locked the door securely she distractedly replied “Yes. Yeah. Yep. Perfectly fine. I’m absolutely fantastic I just need to make sure…” she looked out the peephole for a few seconds before whirling back around with a conniving grin. “This is the part where I blackmail you.”

Meg laughed. “Blackmail, Mrs. Jones? How delightful! Did you find a copy of our sex tapes? I was totally planning on releasing them eventually; we’d make a mint.”

Lindsay’s face scrunched up as Gavin squawked at Meg.

“ _What_ sex tapes?”

“Shush.” Meg waved her hand at Gavin. “But seriously, what’s up?”

Gavin pulled Meg’s hand away from his face and turned slightly, wondering why the apartment was so suspiciously quiet. “And where is my lovely little boi?”

"I sent him to the store to grab more snacks for tonight’s gaming. He’s running a little late because he can’t find one of the things I wanted at Walmart.” She paused for a second. “Because they don’t carry it at Walmart I needed him gone so I could enlist your help.”

“Ok, shoot.” Meg replied.

“I want- no. I need a cat.” At the pitying looks she received she protested, “No, you don’t understand. I  _need_  a cat. I  _need_  a kitty to love and to pet and to take care of. I am sick of waiting. I  _am_  the cat lady but without any _cats_.”

Gavin gave her an incredulous look. “Michael. Hates. Cats.”

Lindsay sighed. “I am, in fact, aware of this, thanks Gav.”

“It’s impossible! He’ll never agree to get one.”

She grinned at him. “Nah. That’s why I need your help. I’m pretty sure we could convince him. It’s all well and good when it’s just me wanting to get a cat, but if you guys help me bombard him with cat things constantly he’ll have to give in eventually.”

Meg nodded. “It’s not like he can ignore all of us forever, right?” she agreed, optimistically.

"Yeah. Well. What do we get out of this?” Gavin asked.

“There’ll be a cat here on game nights?” Lindsay suggested.

Mag snapped her fingers. “I know! We get to name it.”

At the gleam in Gavin’s eyes Lindsay immediately said “No! No. No. _No_. I’m not naming my kitty fucking  _Taylor_ -”

Gavin put on his best puppy eyes. “But Lindsay.  _Taylor Jones_.”

“Look on the bright side, it won’t be your kid.” Meg pointed out cheerfully.

Lindsay sighed then startled as they all heard the door unlock. “Fine. But only if Michael gets on board.” she said quickly as Michael shoved his way in.

“Michael gets on board with what?” he asked distractedly, placing the bags he was carrying on the counter.

“Shots every time someone gets a star in Mario party.” Lindsay replied smoothly, Gavin and Meg nodding beside her.

Michael shrugged. “I’m game. Sorry Linds, I couldn't find your snacks but I did get you a cat shaped donut.” he told her, kissing her on the cheek.

“Yes!” Lindsay fist pumped, kissing Michael back. “Let’s get this party  _started_.”

\--

Michael looked shiftily around him as he knocked on the door in front of him. He hunched over and tried to make himself as small as possible (even though he was in broad daylight and no one else was actually around; he couldn't risk it.)

The door opened and the man on the other side looked down at him confused. “Are you lost? Your apartment is like,” he made vague waving motions, “that way.”

Michael gave him a disgruntled look. “What about you? You don’t even live in this apartment complex. Are YOU lost?”

Joel stuck his tongue out at Michael. “I was invited, thank you very much.”

Suddenly Ray heaved himself up onto Joel’s back so he could see over his shoulder. “Michael. Again?”

“Yes.” Michael looked around guiltily. “Please, Ray? Pleaaaase? I’ll buy pizza. I need sanctuary for the love of god, please.”

Ray sighed and shrugged, looking at the side of Joel’s face awkwardly from his position on Joel’s back. “Free pizza sound good to you?”

Joel wiggled his shoulders to get Ray off of him. “Sure, why not.” Joel moved aside as Ray wandered back to the couch to unpause their game of Minecraft.

"Just so you know, I’m only letting you stay this time because of the free food. You really need to fucking man up and deal with it or it’ll never end and I really can’t take you being over here ALL THE TIME when you have your own apartment literally 1 minute away." Ray told Michael as Joel shut the door and flopped down next to Ray, picking up the other controller.

"So what’s going on with you then, Michael?" Joel asked as Michael slumped down in front of the couch.

"It’s Lindsay and Gavin and Meg and  _everyone they've ever talked to_. They keep bugging me about cats.”

Joel looked at Michael, confused. “How is that any different from usual. Your wife is addicted to cats. So is your boyfriend and his girlfriend. You’d think you’d be used to it by now."

"He’s not my boyfriend. " Michael replied automatically. He pulled his phone out of his hoodie pocket. "Here look at the last 30 messages from  _anyone_.”

Joel took it and scrolled through a frightening amount of cat pics. “Ok, I can see how that could be a bit excessive.”

Ray patted him on the shoulder. “Admitting it is the first step.”

Joel nudged Ray with said shoulder. “Shut up. Just because I have more ore than you.”

"YOU HAVE FOUR DOUBLE CHESTS FULL OF STACKS OF 64 GOLD BLOCKS, JOEL."

Joel looked at Ray with as straight of a face as he could muster and said with as much deadpan as possible. “I like gold.”

"No shit, asshole." Ray muttered, nudging him back. "Anyways Michael, it’s pretty clear exactly what’s going on with your…harem."

"He’s NOT my boyfriend." Michael replied grumpily.

"They want a cat. Get them a fucking cat. Stop eating all my food. Live in your own fucking apartment. So what if you have to put up with a cat it’s not like it’s gonna eat your face off in your sleep.” He gave Michael a thoughtful looks. “Probably. AND, Lindsay, Gavin, and Meg will probably shut up about it because they’re too busy playing with the cat. There, all of your problems are solved."

Michael grumbled, sinking slumping lower to the floor.

"Either way, I think you’re overreacting.”

"You guys are the least helpful people I know. And I know Gavin."

“And you keep hiding here and eating all my food because you’re scared of cats. Like seriously i’m shorter than you- if they come knocking i’m pretty sure Lindsay could take me out with one finger.”

“I’m not scared I jus-”

Joel cut him off. “They’re gonna find you, and they’re gonna make you get a cat anyways. You might as well give in now while your dignity is intact. Or at least your balls are.”

"I didn't ask you." Michael muttered.

"Actually you kind of did."

"No, I came here to ask Ray and be pathetic at Ray- what are you even doing here, man? Isn't your apartment like half a city away?"

"I told you, I was invited." Joel replied, grinning. "We’re getting all the achievements in Xbox One Minecraft."

Ray leaned over him to pat Michael’s head in solidarity. “What he really means is I’m getting all of the achievements and he’s hoarding all of the precious ore he can find like a lunatic. See, everyone we know is crazy. Join them. But in the real world not my fucking apartment.”

"But cats." Michael whimpered.

"Listen. I know we’re friends, Michael, but you are interrupting some important gaming for me. So either buy me a pizza or I’m going to have to kick you out into the wild and make you fend for yourself against the cat posse.” Joel told him.

Michael glared back but dug his phone out of his hoodie anyways.

\--

Joel sulked in the corner of the couch as he watched Ray and Michael duke it out in Call of Duty. This was the third time Michael had been over when he was there, claiming sanctuary from Lindsay, Gavin, Meg, and the majority of their friend group. Joel got that, he really did, but he also was getting annoyed; it had been over a month and Michael still had done nothing about it- and he kept interrupting Joel’s time with Ray.

Mostly, though, he was bitter because he knew if it was him versus Michael, Michael would always be priority for Ray.

For a while after Ray had just gotten hired at Roosterteeth, Joel had been concerned that Michael was going to piss a circle around Ray and claim him as his own. Joel knew he wouldn't be able to go up against that- especially when Michael demonstrated how things were settled in jersey. He had all but resigned himself to watching from afar as Michael struck his claim (meanwhile befriending Ray so he could at least hang out with him, if not make out with him) when suddenly the fierce and sweet hurricane Tuggey swept in and stole Michael away to OZ, leaving Ray to hang out in Kansas with Joel.

Or Texas.

Joel was willing to admit his analogy needed work. It was a little strange and a tad too telling about his fondness for magic and fantasy. (How could you hate fantasy things when the main goal was either to become ruler or get booty? And Joel loved all kinds of booty.)

While Michael was distracted by the princess Tuggey, and Ray was still settling his position at the company, Joel decided it would be the best time for him to really get to know Ray.

He had, after all, been attracted to him since he showed up. Well, perhaps not attracted. It was more of a strong affection- he’d tell anyone who asked.

Not that anyone asked.

Let’s be real, though. The Rooster Teeth offices basically consisted of a large group of gossipy motherfuckers with access to the internet and phones; no one had to ask.

Joel could tell from the looks Geoff, Burnie, and Gus gave him (and subsequently everybody else in the fucking company (he liked to ignore them all in the hopes they’d do the same and allow him to maintain his faux obliviousness to his own emotions) ) that he was failing at being as un-obvious as possible.

But he could plead the fifth as well as anyone else.

If anyone ever did ask.

Which they didn't.

That was the main problem- no one ever fucking asked. They just watched with their stupid beady little eyes, judging and seeing things Joel didn’t want them to see. And really why was anyone ever surprised that he hid in his office most of the time? He was surrounded by lunatics and people who kept making (true) assumptions (that he didn’t want seen). And he knew punching them in the face to get them to stop looking would only aggravate the situation.

It wasn’t like he was ready to admit to liking Ray beyond friendship to himself yet. Beyond his physical assets, anyways. The least they could do was keep their noses out of it.

So what if he reveled in Ray’s calmness? Of course, Ray played up his character in front of a camera. But so did everyone in the entire company, including Joel. Underneath it all, Ray was a calm, focused, and quietly fun-loving individual, much like Joel. He had simple desires; mostly video games and food. And he was content with the life he had.

Of course, one might argue that Joel wasn’t particularly calm , what with his excessive neuroticism and all that, but really anyone who paid attention to the stock market would be worried. Plus his own mental health really wasn’t anyone’s fucking business but his own so you shut your mouth and get out of his office.

That said, hiding at Ray’s (which yes, he was willing to admit he was hiding (from the vast emptiness of his own apartment)) was very much like being at home, except the view of certain people’s ass was better.

Plus, Ray took gaming seriously and so did Joel, generally, so they had fun doing what they liked doing best; playing games and eating. They enjoyed the companionable silence and shared solitude.

The fact that banging hadn’t come up yet was a mostly because Joel still hadn’t admitted to himself (and he was certainly not ready to admit it to Ray) that maybe he wanted that option.

Especially with fucking Michael showing up all the time again to hide from his own relationship problems.

And anyways, Joel had accepted the inevitability of his own mortality. He had, at best, a decade left (though he wasn’t that optimistic.) It was simple enough to give up the booze for companionship, even if it didn’t include fun times for his dick, but that didn’t mean he was going to live much longer either way. At least he had fun times with Ray in general (without his dick).

"Jooooooooel" Ray’s voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"Hmm?" he asked, lifting his head from the back of the couch to stare back at Ray.

"If you’re gonna fall asleep, old man, you might as well go back home."

Joel shrugged, stretching to get the crick out of his neck. “Nah. I’ve got a pillow right here.” he said, promptly flopping down across the entire couch to lay his head on Ray’s lap.

"Your pillow disagrees with this."

"My pillow should shut up because it’s pointy and about to get shot by Michael, dumbass."

Ray’s attention quickly turned back to the game and avoiding Michael’s bullets.

Eventually the warmth of Ray’s (admittedly, very fucking pointy) legs and the low sounds of gaming became a dull background noise and he fell asleep.

\--

A large thunderclap and the resulting flash of lightning that lit up the office alerted Ray to the storm’s intensifying outside.

He sighed. He had hoped that the drizzling would have lessened before he had to walk home, but the opposite had happened.

Unfortunately.

He stared at the screen in front of him; his video was taking a ridiculous long time to render so he would probably be stuck here another two hours (if he didn’t end up losing all of his work by a power outage thanks to the storm)

He glanced at the couch behind him, wondering if it would be worth it to just stay here the night, but he had been looking forward to eating the pasta he had leftover in his fridge. And it wasn’t like he could take a nap for the couple of hours it would take for the video to render; he’d end up falling asleep for the entire night, he just knew it. But if he didn’t get some sleep soon, he’s probably end up staying up too late and be unable to function as fully as possible the next day- Though people on the internet kept making fun of him for sleeping through half of Achievement Hunter’s videos, he always tried to be as awake and functional as possible (he just stopped talking as much because everything he said ended up on a t shirt or was thrown back at him a bajillion times in comments and tweets. He truly was his worst enemy on the internet.)

Spinning around in his chair he hummed to himself; it was unlikely he was going to get home anytime soon, so he might as well venture into the kitchen for food. Hopefully eating would stave off the boredom and, if he was really lucky, there might be someone still in the studio who was awake.

He remembered a box of pizza, vaguely, being at the bottom of the fridge earlier that morning. Hoping it wasn’t all gone, he lazily pushed himself up off his chair and exited the well lit Achievement Hunter office into the very dark hallways of Studio 5.

He knew he should’ve taken Michael up on that ride home when he had offered, but Ray had wanted to get ahead on his work. There really wasn’t enough time in the day for the amount of videos production the company did. Even with the two new additions to Achievement Hunter, they were always swamped with things to do.

Not that he minded, he just knew that if he got too far behind he’d regret it so he tried to stay ahead. And he knew it wasn’t likely he’d get fired for getting behind, but he did really enjoy this job; it was his dream job. He didn’t want to risk anything.

In a way he looked at his job much like the games he played- do your best and keep trying until you get all the achievements. Even if it meant the most boring ass grinding ever.

He turned on the flashlight on his phone so he wouldn’t bump into anything that happened to be laying around on the ground that wasn’t there earlier. Plus the still darkness half put him on edge, considering the company was always so bustlingly busy during the day.

It was weird; even though they had been in the new office for a couple months it felt so unfamiliar in the dark. He was half concerned he would take a wrong turn and end up in Narnia; though he knew that was utterly ridiculous. It wasn’t _that_ difficult to get into the kitchen area from the Achievement Hunter office.

He stopped short when he turned a corner and realized there was a light leaking from under a door further down the hall. If he was lucky, it might be someone who’d be willing to drive him home later.

He sidled up to the door as quietly as he could and gently opened the door a slit to see who was inside and what they were doing.

It was Joel, and he had his headphones on so it wasn’t a surprise that he didn’t notice Ray at all.

Ray opened the door a little further and peered in to see what it was Joel was up to.

It only took a couple moments to realize that he was editing the Five Nights at Freddy’s How To he and Adam had recorded earlier that week.

Ray grinned, an idea popping into his head. He slowly pulled the door closed until it was only open a sliver and continued on his journey for the pizza, thumbing at his phone to find the Freddy Fazbear song as a ringtone he could download.

It took a while to find one with the scream at the end but since there was still some pizza leftover he wasn’t too bothered as he scrolled through ringtones.

He vaguely wondered if he should feel bad if he gave Joel a heart attack or something, but brushed the concern off; Joel had played games that were much more frightening than the vaguely harmless Ray.

Joel would be fine.

Probably.

Once he finished his pizza, he turned the volume as high up as he could get it and set his flashlight to a very low strobe, then made his way back to Joel’s office. Carefully, he wedged it in the crack of the door and, holding his breath, he pressed play. He hoped the slow strobe would look enough like the Freddy Fazbear eyes in the doorway in the game.

Joel didn’t notice for a second until he had paused his editing. He was very confused for a moment before he startled and turned around. He looked around frantically for the source of the noise and froze when he saw the light and the song emanating from it.

Ray had picked the short version, so it wasn’t more than a couple seconds before the loud screech happened and Joel half jolted in his chair.

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Whoever you are, you are an asshole. Fuck.”

Ray toed open the door and stepped into the light, shrugging. “Yeah. But it was worth it to see the look on your face.”

Joel immediately relaxed when he saw it was only Ray and not an animatronic monster somehow come to life in their office, out to consume him.

"I don’t suppose this would be a good time to ask you for a ride home later, huh?" Ray asked, claiming the chair next to Joel and crossing his legs to refrain from rolling himself all about the office as he was prone to do when bored and in wheeled chairs..

Joel gave him an unimpressed look. “Not anymore. Well. I really can’t anyways, I gotta edit this and another couple videos.”

Ray nodded. “Tell me about it. I just finished a video and it’s gonna take 2 fucking hours. IF the storm doesn’t cut the power before then anyways.”

Joel groaned and saved his work. “Do not say that. Do not jinx us like that for the love of god.”

There was a sudden flash of lightning and another loud thunder clap that made them both startle in their chairs.

Joel leveled an unimpressed look with Ray. “I swear, if the storm ruins my footage I am going to to taze you.”

Ray fake gasped. and put a hand to his heart. “How cruel Mr. Heyman. I have been nothing but a delightful strapping young man and you are threatening my life for something i cannot control.”

Joel put his hand on ray’s face and rubbed it until his words were muffled enough that he got distracted and stopped talking. “You’d think you’d be nicer considering we’re the only ones left and I could easily leave you here instead of taking you home.”

Ray snorted. “At least buy me dinner first.”

Joel kicked Ray’s chair away from him. “Shut up you’re distracting me.”

"It s not my fault my lithe body and superior flexibility makes it so you can’t concentrate."

Joel sighed and slid his headphones back over his head. “At least let me finish fucking editing this, ok?”

Ray pouted pathetically. “But I’m booooooored. Be bored with me Joooooel.”

Joel waved a hand vaguely at him. “After I finish editing. Go bother the monsters in the hallways or something for a while.”

Ray rolled his eyes and got up. “Fiiiiiiine. Loser.” He made his way back to the Achievement Hunter office to see how far his rendering had gotten. Apparently he’d only wasted 20 minutes.

He was going to be here for ever. He was going to die here in this chair, old and grey, and bored utterly out of his mind.

He looked around the room for something to do to entertain himself for the next short while or so until Joel was done editing. He spotted his Snorlax plush and grinned. Quickly, he gathered all of the stuffed plushies he could find in the room; the Eeveelutions, the dolls from the tower of pimps shelves of their Minecraft skins, and the various other plushies scattered around the room.

He arranged them all around the couch so they were looking upwards, then he sat Snorlax on top of the middle couch cushion in the impression that all the stuffed toys were staring up at him. He quickly snapped a picture and sent it to twitter with the caption: Praise be to the Snorlax. Fuck Omanyte.

This task killed about 10 minutes. He wandered back to the kitchen, checking his twitter feed so he could grab a bottle of water. As he was returning to the Achievement Hunter office he noticed Joel had replied to his tweet with a picture of a with a picture of a creeper plush standing next to his Snorlax and the caption:  A challenger appears.

Ray hurried back to the Achievement Hunter office to catch Joel but he was nowhere to be found. The creeper was still set up next to his Snorlax. though. He grinned. and knocked all of the plushies over including his Snorlax and the creeper. He took a picture and tweeted it back at Joel with the caption: RIP In peace plushie kingdom.

He heard a beep and a snort at the door and turned to see Joel leaning in the doorway looking at his phone.

"Joooooooeeeellllll" Ray called. His words were punctuated by a clap of thunder and and the pounding of rain on the roof.

"Raaaaaaayyyyyy" Joel mocked back, putting away his phone. "My video is gonna take a while to save. Want to play a game or something?"

"Depends on the game and if I can kick your ass in it."

Joel shrugged and sheepishly ruffled his hair. “I was thinking more like Minecraft. But we could play Halo or something else instead.”

Ray grimaced. “The amount of my life that revolves around Minecraft is getting ridiculous; you’d think it’d be the same for you and Halo.”

"Yeaaaah. I don’t really want to play halo. What else can we do for an hour?"

Ray shrugged.

Joel snapped his fingers, “You know I think we still have the creeper head in the props department. We could hang it from the ceiling over Gavin’s desk.”

Ray shrugged again. “Sure. While we’re there maybe we can find some other pranks we can set up while we have the time.”

"Hell yeah. I owe Adam for tasering me the other day.”

They made their way over to the props department by the light of Ray’s phone’s flashlight, only stopping once when Joel decided to hang back and crawl his fingers up Ray’s spine which resulted in Ray jolting and elbowing Joel in the ribs.

Joel stumbled backwards and knocked into a painting. He quickly straightened it whilst laughing.

Ray leveled a grumpy stare at him. “Not cool, man, not cool.”

Joel snorted. “You’re the one who played Freaky Freddy music at me while I was editing. If anything, payback is a bitch. Also that means I can-” he cut himself off as his fingers began poking insistently into Ray’s sides.

Ray’s startled laughter echoed through the empty hallway and in the resulting kerfuffle of retaliation he managed to drop his phone.

Eventually they stopped tickling each other long enough to catch their breath and be acutely aware that they were glad no one was still at the company to be witness to their childishness.

Ray picked up his phone but Joel snatched it out of his hands. “My turn to lead the way, young padawan.”

“Use your own phone’s flashlight then.” Ray replied, unimpressed and trying to get his phone back.

“Nuh uh.” Joel stuck his tongue out at him. “You still have that audio on your phone.”

They made it to the props department and peeked into the dark room, feeling around the walls for the light switch that would make the inanimate props looks less like shadows of impending death.  

"Aha!" Joel said as he flicked the light on.

Ray blinked blearily into the sudden brightness, and quickly set about looking for the creeper head and possibly some rope.

In the meantime, Joel shuffled through some of the cabinets and came across Pongo, the creepy ass doll. “Hey Ray, I found Pongo.”

"Good for you?" Ray asked distractedly, trying vainly to reach the creeper head which he had finally found at the top of a set of shelves that he was unfortunately too short for.

"Yeah! I bet if I put him in Adam’s chair he’ll shit himself when he goes to sit d-" Joel trailed off to a stop as he dragged the puppet over to where Ray was. For a few seconds he allowed himself to admire the view of Ray stretching up to get the creeper head.

There was now a visible strip of pale skin his fingers itched to touch, and of course his eyes wandered downwards to Ray’s ass which was, as always, glorious. He kept getting distracted by Ray stretching onto his tippy toes to try and reach the shelf better. All it really did was flex his legs which were also quite nice, Joel mused to himself.

Ray half turned to see Joel nearby clutching the Pongo doll. “Yeah, he’d probably be pretty freaked out. Are you alright? You look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet.”

Joel shook himself and adamantly refused to let himself blush for being caught staring. “I’m fine. I think we’ll need to stop by the kitchen for coffee or something if you’re going to get me to drive you home. Sorry, sorry.”

Ray shrugged.

"Anyways, you seem to be having a problem reaching the top shelf. Do you want me to get it for you kiddo?" Joel asked, grinning.

"Don’t laugh at me.” Ray grumbled. “Just because I’m fucking short and you’re a fucking tree.”. he muttered.

Joel set Pongo down and attempted to reach up for the cardboard head. Unfortunately for Joel he was a couple inches too short to get it, as well. He heard Ray snicker behind him.

"You were saying" Ray asked, raising an eyebrow as Joel turned around to face him.

Joel rolled his eyes. “You’re still a shrimp.” He glanced around for a stool but saw nothing of the sort anywhere. He cocked his head at Ray. “I have an idea.”

It was, in fact, a good idea. Also a slightly lecherous idea, but Joel had very little qualms about that. Especially when he could pull off innocence fairly well.

"Come here."

Ray took a step closer and stood next to him on the shelves, gazing up at the cardboard head contemplatively.

"Brace yourself.” Joel warned before he crouched down slightly and hefted Ray up around his middle.

Ray let out a startled cry and for a couple of very slow seconds he flailed about and wondered if he was about to see his life flash before his eyes as he fell to the concrete floor and cracked his everything open.

Joel rolled his eyes and held him firmly as he adjusted to being suspended in the air. “Can you reach it?” He asked as Ray recovered his balance.

Ray stretched out his hands and, while it was a little higher, he could not in fact reach the head. “Nope.”

Joel grinned quietly behind Ray’s back, his hands were already resting on Ray’s hip and his stomach; this just meant he could reach lower. He moved one arm across Ray’s thighs and quickly hefted him a little higher so his other arm also was across Rays thighs, holding him as stable as he could.

Ray wobbled a second but got his bearings a lot faster this time around. He stretched up and snagged at the creeper head with the tips of his fingers.

"Can you get it?" Joel asked absently, concentrating on not dropping him.

"Almost, give me a second I think I can get it down." Ray scrambled at the cardboard head until he managed to get one corner closer to the edge of the shelving. He quickly swiped at it with all the strength he could muster and it fell off the shelf and clattered to the ground below, next to Joel’s feet. Ray tried to catch his breath; he really needed to exercise more if knocking a box of a shelf winded him. After a couple seconds he realized Joel (who was staring absentmindedly at Ray’s ass) hadn’t moved to let him down or even acknowledged that he’d gotten the creeper head off the shelf.

"Uhhhh…. Joel?"

"Hm?

“Can you put me down now.”

"Oh. Right." he carefully lowered Ray back to the ground.

Ray picked up the cardboard head and stared at Joel who was still kinda staring into space. Eventually he gently pushed the head against Joel’s stomach.

Joel automatically wrapped his arms around it and shook himself out of his reverie.

"Might need that coffee more than you thought, huh?"

Joel chuckled. “Yeah, probably. It’s been a long day.”

"Tell me about it.” Ray commiserate. “We had to record like 15 things today. It was fucking ridiculous. Anyways, we’ve got the creeper head, and the creepy ass doll. Now all we need is rope.”

“Rope?” Joel asked.

“To hang it over Gav’s desk.” Ray spun around in a slow circle, surveying the room. “If I was rope where would I be?”

"Tied around your wrists?” Joel suggested, winking.

Ray grinned. “Kinky, but I don’t put out on the first date, sorry. Buy me dinner first, at  _least_. I think i saw some over by the door.” They wandered over and did indeed find an adequate coil of rope to suspend the head with.

As Ray made his way out, satisfied with their hunt for things, Joel noticed a cylinder of glitter and a rose.

He grabbed those, too, for the hell of it, and stuck them in his hoodie’s pocket.

Glitter could always make a prank 5 billion times better, he figured, and Ray’s thing was roses, right? Or something like that.

He turned off the lights and shuddered at the silhouettes in the darkness of the prop room before shutting the door firmly behind him and half jogging to catch up to Ray’s phone light further down the hall.

As they passed Joel’s office, Ray plopped the Pongo doll down next to against the door. When they got to the Achievement Hunter office Ray let out a whoop because his rendering had finally finished and it hadn’t actually taken the promised two hours.

He was relieved; that meant as soon as they were done with their pranks they could leave. He was immensely glad that the storm hadn’t cut out the power. Redoing the video would have been hell.

Joel dragged a chair over to Gavin’s desk and stared up at the ceiling contemplatively. “Hey Ray, hold this still and I’ll get the rope attached to the pipe up there.”

Ray snorted. “Alright. Just don’t blame me if you fall the 3 feet to your death.”

Joel rolled his eyes and carefully tossed the end of the rope Ray had handed him over the pipe and tied it to the majority of the rope.

Ray held the back of the chair steady while Joel secured the head in the rope. He hummed as Joel made slightly agitated noises at the rope, staring at Joel’s ass. “You have a nice ass, Joel.” he quoted from the halo tournament they had played against each other, what felt like ages ago.

"Thanks, I try real hard."

Ray laughed. “It shows.” he replied, patting Joel’s ass gently.

Joel turned to look over his shoulder. “Maybe you should be the one buying me dinner, ey?” He asked before getting down off the chair.

They took a step back to observe the effect of the strung up creeper head.

"Good enough?" Joel asked.

Ray nodded. “If anything, we can just tell him we thought his wall was too bare if he doesn't get it. Let me just turn off my computer and we can go set up Pongo.

Joel nodded and pushed the chair back where it came from. He paused a minute to stare at the large wall of fanart the Achievement Hunters had up for their AHWU background, smiling at the sweetness of the fans for putting so much effort into their silly little company.

"Hey Joel. Are you ready?" Ray asked.

Joel blinked- Ray was now at the door and his computer was already off. “Uh. Yeah, you go ahead. I’ll be there in a second, I just want to finish reading this letter.” He said, pointing vaguely at one of the pieces of paper.

"Ok." Ray said dubiously. “But if you sneak up on me I swear to god I will sock you in the nose.”

Joel rolled his eyes. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” he teased.

Ray snorted. “Like you’ve got that much longer old man.”

"Just because i’m not _twelve_ ," Joel retorted, Ray’s laughter becoming more distant as he walked down the hall. Joel took the plastic rose out of his hoodie pocket and picked up Snorlax from the stuffed animal massacre on the floor. He propped it against Snorlax who was in turn propped against Ray’s computer, then quickly left the room before he could let sappiness overtake him.

Before he made his way back down the hallway he lined the bottom of the Achievement Hunter office’s doorway with a small amount of glitter. He continued to do this to any doorway he came across on the way back to his office.

When he finally had gotten back, he found Ray spinning around in his chair, having a conversation with Pongo who was in Adam’s chair.

It mostly consisted of “No don’t kill me. Ow my spleen. I needed that kidney.” and so on.

Joel snickered and Ray looked up.

"Oh hey, you finally made it. I thought maybe you had passed out or something."

"Nah. I found some glitter in the props room and was lining the bottom of doors with it. When everyone gets to work they won’t notice, but by lunch everything will be covered in glitter." He grinned, waving the tube of mostly empty glitter at Ray.

"So much mess. So little effort." Ray remarked. "That’s diabolical."

"Why thank you, sir. Now let me just see if my video has finished exporting and- "

"It’s done. Unless you have anything else to do we are home free." Ray said, smiling.

Joel smiled back and leaned over him to turn off his computer after checking all his files were there.

Ray made no effort to lean back so for a couple of minutes Ray’s face was essentially against Joel’s arm.

Which smelt nice, if Ray did say so himself.

And he did.

“Your arm smells nice.”

"Thanks?”

“Welcome.”

“Alright.” Joel side-eyed him, incredulously. “Everything we’ve needed to do has been done, right?”

Ray nodded.

"Awesome, let’s blow this joint. You all packed and ready to go?" he asked.

Ray laughed. “I’ve been packed and ready for hours. What about you old man?”

Joel bent down to pick up his backpack from under his desk. “I’m always ready to go. I was a boy scout, you know.” he remarked, winking with a filthy grin.

"Somehow, I don’t believe you for a second." Ray replied as they exited the room.

Joel deftly pulled a condom packet out of the side pocket of his backpack. “You underestimate me, my friend.”

Ray laughed, elbowing him in the ribs. “You’re just being optimistic.”

They made it to the door to the parking lot without any fuss but when they opened the door they realized that while the storm had been kind enough to not take out the power, it had flooded the parking lot and was still pouring down in sheets.

"I don’t suppose you have an umbrella hidden in that magical backpack of yours."

Joel frowned. “Nope.”

"So much for being prepared." Ray teased.

"I can’t help but notice that you don’t have one either. Plus there’s no fucking way we’d be able to get my car outta here without having to float it home. I think we’re stuck.”

Ray groaned. “Well fuck. Now what.”

Joel hummed to himself. “There’s always the podcast couch? It’s probably big enough for both of us to sleep on.”

"Yeah, maybe if you weren’t a fucking giant."

"And you’re like the size of my pinkie toes, it’ll work out."

Ray sighed. “Fine. It’s not like I have any better ideas anyways.”

Suddenly a gust of cold stormy wet air rushed in to meet them.

Ray, who was only in a t-shirt, immediately backed away from the door and wiped futilely at his arms. “God damnit. Now i’m going to be freezing cuz the heater is off again.”

Joel hastily shut the door and dropped his backpack down next to him, stripping out of his large hoodie.

Ray had not expected this and was presented with Joel’s stomach as the hoodie pulled his shirt up.

Joel shook his head to get his hair out of his eyes and offered the hoodie to Ray, absentmindedly tugging one side of his shirt down.

Ray blinked at the outstretched jacket. “Uh.”

“Wear it, idiot. It’ll keep you warm enough over night. I think there’s still a blanket somewhere in the control room for the podcast so I can use that, but you’ll need the extra body heat since you’re like… a twig.”

“Thanks.” Ray attempted a mocking smile but really he was just happy Joel was willing to share; especially since he was neurotic about his clothes.

Well. it was Joel. He was neurotic about everything. It was the thought that counted.

Ray shrugged off his backpack and pulled on the hoodie, feeling like he was dressing up in his parents clothes like when he was a toddler. He rolled up the sleeves a bit while Joel failed to hide his laughter at how swamped Ray was in the jacket.

"Come on, come on. Lets get to the podcast set so we can at least try and sleep." Joel ushered him, after realizing he quite liked seeing Ray in his jacket. He wondered, idly, as they walked to the podcast set, if the jacket would smell like Ray when he got it back.

"Lucky you didn’t have to to go drink that coffee, huh." Ray remarked, shoving the door open. "You’d have been wired for hours."

Joel snorted. “I think you severely underestimate my my caffeine intake.”

It was colder in the podcast side of the studio because there hadn’t been anything filmed that day.

Ray shivered and pulled Joel's hoodie closer around him. He toed off his shoes and settled down on one side of the couch, curling into himself and the hoodie while Joel fetched the blanket from the control room.

When Joel returned, he also took off his shoes and then ungracefully flopped next to and half on Ray, sprawling all over the couch with his head on Ray’s arm. He made vague blanket spreading motions over his body and then peered up at Ray, who looked back down incredulously. “Ok first, take off your glasses, dork, or you could break them. Second. Pet me.”

Ray rolled his eyes as he took off his glasses and set them on the coffee table and looked down again at Joel’s now slightly-blurry face. “And why should I do that?”

“Beeeecaaaaauuuussseee,” Joel reasoned, “if you do I will snuggle you and we can share the blanket and you won’t turn into an ice pop in the morning.”

"You’re fucking ridiculous." Ray told Joel, but awkwardly began petting his hair anyways.

Joel shrugged. “Either way would’ve been fun for me. I’d like to see what we’d need to do to heat up a frozen Ray-pop. Probably lots of licking.” He said, winking as ludicrously as he could.

Ray scoffed and pushed Joel’s head off his arm, attempting to shove him off the couch.

Joel flailed for a second before sitting up properly. “Come on then, sleepy time.” he said, tugging Ray out of his curled up position and squishing him into the back of the couch. He spread the blanket around them properly and curled his arms around Ray under the blanket, trying to not breath in the hair on the top of Ray’s head. He scooted up the couch a little so he wouldn’t get his nose tickled in the night; it’d be pretty awkward to sneeze on your friend whilst cuddling.

Ray grumbled slightly, “Why do you get to be the big spoon.”

"Because i’m bigger, duh. Also you’d probably nudge yourself right off the couch on accident if you rolled over on the outside; I don’t move much when i sleep.”

"Uh huh. Anyways,” Ray said, checking his watch, “it’s late o’clock, so shut up so I can sleep. I need my beauty sleep"

"And what about my beauty sleep.?" Joel asked, teasingly.

Ray shuffled slightly so he could see Joel’s face and patted him condescendingly on the face. “Bit too late for you, dear. Now shush. Sleep time.” He said, curling back into the backing of the couch.

Joel humphed at him but settled down as well, prepared to stay awake all night simply for the jittery anxiety he could feel humming under his skin.

\--

Joel jolted awake to the sound of Gavin’s squeaking laughter and Lindsay making calm quiet commentary that he just knew meant she was filming, Michael and Meg chipping in with their two cents as she went. He couldn’t quite parse their words yet, but ‘Joelay’ and ‘cuddling’ and a lot of laughter filtered through.

The person whose face whose back his face was mashed up against groaned and grumbled in front of him, reaching back uncoordinatedly to pat at Joel’s leg and mostly just shifting the blanket off the couch. “Be quiet. I’m trying to sleep.”

There was a chitter of laughter as the peanut gallery stopped talking.

Ray made a more coordinated effort to slap Joel’s thigh as Joel started to panic about being caught molesting his younger co-worker (he may or may not have slid his hand onto Ray’s stomach in the night whilst he was asleep) and the fact that he had no time idea what time it was and if he was late for a meeting or- “Stop thinking so loudly dumbass. You’re worse than them. I’m _trying_  to sleep.”

Joel startled, almost pushing off the couch and mostly getting tangled in the blanket falling off of them. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t-” he said as he removed his hand as unstealthily away from under Ray’s shirt and his own hoodie as possible.

The peanut gallery had started talking again, quieter this time and Joel just knew they were going to use this as blackmail, those fucking assholes.

Ray sighed into the depths of the couch and struggled to pull himself up.

Joel finally managed to untangle themselves from the blanket but Ray sitting up jostled him enough to make him thump down to the ground after it.

"Oops, sorry.” Ray said, through a yawn.

Joel glanced up at him and took a second to admire how cute Ray’s bedhead was before Ray offered a hand to pull him back upright from the ground.

Ray stood up himself and stretched in a way that totally didn’t catch Joel’s eye one bit- especially in front of the fucking idiots recording them.

He glared at them.

Ray sighed. “I swear to god if it’s not past 9 am I am going to punch one of you.”

Michael snorted. “It’d be like a soft pet by a bunny.”

Ray’s grumpy look deepened and he looked about ready to jump at Michael.

Joel grabbed his bag suddenly which was between them which distracted them enough to not start a tussle on the podcast set.

"Oh." Ray said, tugging at the hoodie’s neckline. "Did you want this back or can I borrow it for today?"

Joel fidgeted, the need to flee from everyone increasing as all five sets of eyes turned to him expectantly. “Keep it, I’ll see you later, ok?” and in his panic, for some reason he couldn’t pinpoint, he leaned over and kissed Ray on the cheek before fleeing.

It wasn’t until he had safely shut himself away in his office, not even startled to see it was stupidly early in the morning nor that Adam’s chair was still occupied by Pongo, that he realized what he had done.

He collapsed onto his desk chair and slammed his head against the desk for a while, muttering “stupid, stupid, stupid” at himself over and over again until his head hurt. It still didn’t erase the memory, unfortunately. “Fuuuuuuuuck.”

Eventually he resorted to the only tried and true method he had; and began drinking from his not so secret stash of booze under his desk.

\--

"The thing is-" Joel slurred to himself, "The thing is. He has such a nice ass.” Joel nodded to himself in commiseration and took another swig of his drink.

Joel had been drinking for quite a while so he could forgo the gay freak-out section of his crisis to focus on listing all the ways that ruining his and ray’s friendship by involving sex in it was a bad thing.

That and ray was like half his age. Which, really, wasn’t as taboo as the gay sex thing might be but really he was mostly scared of the commitment.

“I never really thought. Anyone. Would. Yanno. Like me. Like. _Like me_  like me. Yeah and there’s sex and sex is great but  _I_  can barely stand to deal with my own neurosis how can I expect someone else to try? He probably isn’t even interested and oh my god am I going to get sued for sexual harassment in the workplace? And maybe I’ve already ruined our friendship- what if he hates me because i’m just some creepy old dude hitting on him? What if he likes me? What if he doesn’t? What if he DOES? And then he’ll see i’m fucking insane. Cuz i am, you know. I like it here. Like,  _here_  here, not just here in the office. I like my job and I like my life and I’ve been a bachelor all of it how do I deal with another person in it? Cuz i can’t just have sex with him. I mean I could. But that would suck.”

Joel blinked before giggling. “Suck. What if i’m not good enough at it for him? I mean. What if i’m not good enough for him? Who am I kidding, of course i’m not good enough for him. I’ve  _met_ him. Have _you_  met him? He’s gonna hate me because I can’t keep my hands (well, lips) to myself. And we were getting along so well. But. How do i deal with him on a daily basis? I mean I kinda already do? But it’s not like we’re living together or anything. But we’re together a lot of the time. Oh god am I taking up too much of his time? Am I already ruining his life? I don’t want to ruin his life- I just want to be part of it. And he’s just so. Nice. And he doesn’t hate me when I fuck shit up. Or if I don’t want to go  _do_  things. And i just like him, you know?”

Lindsay nodded back at Joel, commiseratingly. “I get it completely. Would you like a stuffed creeper in this trying time?” She asked him, holding out the creeper plushie.

Joel blinked owlishly at Lindsay, accepting the plushie. “You are not Adam.”

"Nope."

“What time is it?”

“Like noon. Adam told me you were drunk so I came over to edit some of your videos. You should probably go lay down on the couch and take a nap or something so you can deal with your man-pain.”

"You’re a very nice lady."

"Uh huh. You’ll just owe me lunch or something when you get over whatever it is you’re doing, Alright?” She asked, waving her hands vaguely.

Joel nodded and dragged himself off his desk chair to flop on the couch.

Lindsay handed him a bottle of water. “Drink this before you pass out. I’m gonna just edit on your computer so if you have more ranting about Ray to discuss, feel free.”

Joel gave her a wobbly, grateful, half smile, drank about half the bottle of water, and passed out on the couch.

Lindsay snorted. Even if it meant a little extra work on her part, it was hilarious to watch her friends skirting around each other. Plus with Joel passed out on the couch this office was a hundred times more peaceful than the side room for the Achievement Hunters.

\--

Ray, on the other hand, had less qualms about what had transpired. His main attitude towards life was to go with the flow (as long as the flow was indoors and involved food, but that was besides the point.)

He had a checklist for potential ‘love interests’ that coincided mostly with his checklist for close friends with points such as “Do they care if I spend the majority of my day either playing games, eating, or sleeping?” “Will they play games with me?” “Do they care that I don’t drink?” “Do they care that all I eat is fast food?” “Do they care that I never leave the house except for food in work?”

The only real difference in the lists was, “Do I find them attractive?”

Ray was pretty satisfied with their compatibility, the main obstacle was how to convince Joel that they should try out a more-than-friends relationship.

Up until that morning Ray hadn’t actually considered Joel being attracted to him (he was a little bit slow on the uptake when it came to people being attracted to him), but now that he had expressed his interest (perhaps on accident, but that was besides the point) it wouldn’t be that difficult to convince him, right?

Which was why Ray found himself stood outside Joel’s office door, steeling himself for the upcoming confrontation. Lindsay had warned him earlier that Joel would probably be hungover and even though he felt a little guilty about it, Ray decided to take that opportunity to say what he needed to without Joel over-analyzing it and freaking out more (well, according to Lindsay, anyways.).

Finally, he peered in through the doorway to find Joel still mostly asleep on the couch. “Joooooooooeeeellll’ he called quietly, entering the room.

Joel stirred and blinked up at him blearily. “Whatizit?”

“Hey you’re still gonna take me home today right?”

Joel’s eyebrows furrowed. “Ray?”

"You’re still driving me home, right Joel?"

"What? Why are you sparkly?" Joel asked, scrubbing at his eyes.

“Well someone decided to put glitter in all the doorways.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Anyways, see you after work?”

“Yeah?”

"Awesome., it’s a date. And hey, who knows? You might get lucky….” Ray quickly kissed Joel on the forehead before retreating “… and get your hoodie back."

Joel stared at the slightly ajar open door as he listened to Ray’s footsteps retreat down the hall, utterly floored.

\--

Michael was once again at Ray’s door.

And once again, Joel answered it.

Before Michael could attempt to make a plea for sanctuary as well as remark on the disheveled appearance of Joel and what he could see of Ray’s living room, Joel start talking. “Listen. I like you. You’re my friend. But you are getting in the way of sex right now. My brain is saying ‘Hey, I should grab that door and slam it in your face so I can have some really awesome sex without this asshole interrupting,’ but since it’s partially your fault i’m getting this sex i’ll give you some advice instead: Get a fucking cat. Get a fake one if you really don’t want a live one. Get a fucking cat and go have your happy little foursome and stop barging over here while we’re in the middle of dates and sex because it really fucking ruins the mood. Ok? Ok.” And with that he closed the door in Michael’s baffled face.

Michael blinked at the shut door, sighed when he heard Lindsay, Gavin, and Meg’s voices calling for him, and then fled immediately when he heard ‘noises’ behind the closed door.

As much as he loved his friends-slash-coworkers, there was some things he decided he did not need to traumatize himself with.

Luckily he managed to dodge the cat inquisition by saying he was going to go get snacks for their game night. While he was at the store he found an adorable cat plushie and hoped (since he could no longer hide at Ray’s) it would be enough to get Lindsay and company to stop pestering him about getting a cat.

It wasn’t.


End file.
